George Russell says he believes a “perfect storm” has created a gulf between Mercedes and their rivals in the first qualifying session of the new Formula One season.
The Briton’s comments refer to the fact that Max Verstappen – whom Russell says Mercedes considers their closest rival – crashed without a confirmed time.
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But it’s also possible that the quote reflects more generally on qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, which seems to be a function of the most controversial new set of rules F1 has ever seen.
“We’ve been through the best car in Formula 1 history, the best car to drive and probably the worst car,” McLaren world champion Lando Norris said after qualifying sixth in Melbourne.
Norris talked about the impact of electrical energy management on the way drivers operate the new car, with the engine’s 50-50 ratio between combustion and electric power having an unusually large impact on the optimization of lap times.
If this sounds complicated, that’s because it is. The driver constantly manages the battery’s charge throughout the lap and does so through driving techniques that many people wouldn’t normally associate with the ultimate racing challenge.
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“You slow down too much before the corner,” Norris said. “You have to lift everything up to make sure the (battery) pack is on top. If the battery pack is too high, you’re also screwed.”
A lack of information needed to maximize the engine had an impact – Norris failed on Friday due to reliability issues.
“It certainly wasn’t an easy weekend for me,” he said. “It’s just not many laps and a lot of problems.
“The problem now is, you can’t get back in the car and drive a car that you were once familiar with and click. This car is weird.
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“Just get into a rhythm of lifting here and there to go faster and use gears you don’t want to use, and understand that when you lift more, you’re going to brake later, but you have to brake less.
“That’s why laps are more valuable than ever. In the past, you missed P1 and didn’t pay too much attention. Now, you miss five laps and not only do you have to figure things out faster as a driver, the engine can’t learn what it needs to learn and then you’re at a disadvantage.”
Max Verstappen said of his crash: “I had just reached Turn One and when I pressed the pedal the rear axle suddenly locked completely, so it was a very strange thing that I had never experienced in F1 before” [Getty Images]
Russell finished 1-2 ahead of Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli and was 0.785 seconds ahead of the first driver not driving a Mercedes, Red Bull Racing’s Isaac Hajjar.
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Russell said: “We knew we had a fast car underneath us. I don’t think we ever expected it to be that fast, but Max wasn’t there.
“We treat him as our No. 1 rival and if you look at the speed difference between him and his teammates over the last seven years, you would expect him to be in that mix as well.
“It’s kind of a perfect storm.”
There may be an important fact factor to this, but there is no doubt that Mercedes has the fastest car and they are going to take some beating for a while.
McLaren also had a Mercedes engine, but their fastest driver, fifth-placed Oscar Piastri, was more than 0.8 seconds slower than Russell.
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McLaren lost most of its time on the long ‘straight’ run between Turns Six and Nine at Albert Park. Mercedes are able to deploy more energy there – because they arrive at Turn Six with a higher battery charge.
Team principal Andrea Stella said the Mercedes were also faster in most corners, but added: “How to use the full potential of these power units will shave off quite a bit of lap time.”
Why can’t McLaren compete in this way yet? Because Mercedes is a team. They built the engine so now have a more complete understanding of how it works.
However, Mercedes’ strengths extend beyond power unit management. They also built a really nice car.
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Stella said: “Mercedes are fast in the corners, not just on the straights. There are a few corners where we can compete with them, but overall they are faster on sections where there is limited grip.”
But he added that it could also be related to engine use.
“What we see is that every time we maximize the power unit, somehow everything gets better and you go faster in the corners,” he said.
The fact that qualifying was conducted in cooler conditions, making it more difficult to reach optimal tire temperatures, may have also affected this – as Russell pointed out, Mercedes have been running cooler, as they have been the past two years.
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“We saw McLaren and probably Ferrari, they lost performance in relative terms [terms] Coming through this qualifying session as the weather got colder and colder,” Stella said.
Many drivers have made it clear that they don’t like these new rules and the way they affect engine use – the need for lift before corners, or the need to slow down to harvest energy at full throttle at the end of a straight, etc.
“It’s definitely different, not like last year,” Norris said. “It’s not like, ‘Push this corner more,’ because sometimes if you push more, you lose battery and you’re slower. You have to understand how to do things.
“Mercedes obviously understand that, they are a good team and this is their own engine. We will get there, it just takes time.”
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If the engine isn’t to most drivers’ tastes, they do find some merit in the new cars, which are more nimble and, no matter what Norris said excitedly when he saw the gap between himself and Russell, a little less drivable than the rock-solid ground-effect cars of the past four years.
World champion Lando Norris wins last year’s Australian Grand Prix from pole position [Getty Images]
“There are a lot of different opinions on the whole new regulations, but I do think car regulations for everyone is definitely a step forward,” Russell said.
The new engine may also have an impact on racing.
Starting off is notoriously difficult because the elimination of the electric motor that recovers energy from the turbine (also used to spin the turbine) allows the turbocharger to reach the correct speed and makes the car harder to roll off the line.
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Some believe Ferrari’s engines have an advantage in this regard, although not everyone agrees.
But Charles Leclerc, 0.8 seconds slower than fourth-placed Russell, sounded less optimistic about his ability to challenge Mercedes in the race, even if he could take the lead with some kind of electric start.
Leclerc said he had expected Mercedes to take the lead, but the size of the gap surprised him as much as Russell.
“It’s very surprising, but at the same time we can only respect what they’ve done with the engine and the performance they’ve found compared to other engines,” he said.
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“In the game, there’s nothing I can do. Yesterday in practice they were very strong and their engine wasn’t running like it was this morning [in final practice].
“I don’t even know if they were at full strength in qualifying. Maybe they left it a little bit because it was so crazy this morning.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I think they’re going to go into another world — probably less than a second faster than everyone else. That’s what I expect. But I hope I’m wrong.”